In Dead Waters
by Persephone Kore
Summary: Calypso comes to Will Turner on the Flying Dutchman.


**In Dead Waters  
by Persephone**

_Disclaimer: This is a work of fanfiction based on the Pirates of the Caribbean movies. No undue claim nor any material profit is expected or intended._

Will awoke halfway, to a sound of breath, which he mistook at first for the long sigh of wind over wave, and the smell of mud. Low tide.

Mud? He was in the middle of the ocean.

A salt-mud breeze touched his cheek in the closed cabin, and he woke fully all at once, opening his eyes.

"Hello, William Turner."

It took a long moment before his eyes could pick the dark face out of dark shadows, but the voice and breath were enough. The touch of fingernails on his scarred chest was more than enough. "Calypso," he said.

"Yeeeeesss." She appeared to grow larger; he thought she probably did. She loomed over him, the mud-smell fading and the scent of the deep ocean coming off her, the storm and deep water of the maelstrom. "You are an interesting man, William Turner."

"Am I." The nails against scar tissue itched lightly. He picked up her hand, finding it larger than his own but not by much, and then wasn't sure what to do with it. After a moment's thought he shifted his grip, shook the hand politely, and sat up as he let it go. He slept with his sword beside him, but he didn't think it would do much good here.

Calypso laughed in Tia Dalma's voice. "Very interesting."

"Thank you."

"I t'ink I might favor you," she said, and she suddenly was much _closer_. "I see you do your duty."

Will leaned back cautiously. Tia Dalma had smelled of any number of odd and offputting things; at least, William Turner did not find semi-preserved eyeballs and inquisitive serpents to be especially conducive to attraction. He tried picturing Elizabeth turning up festooned in eyeballs, as he really wasn't sure he could rule this out given the whole Pirate King situation, and decided that perhaps he would ask her to take them off. They'd just get squished otherwise.

Calypso did not smell of anything offputting. At the moment she didn't even smell of mud or fish, much less snakes and eyeballs or human sweat. The cool breeze was gone, the cabin air hot and motionless like that of the tropical doldrums. He had just picked up the passengers and crew of a becalmed ship there, a few days ago. He was sweating. Elizabeth would be sweating.

Calypso didn't smell human at all. Moisture dripped off her as she leaned over him -- ah, leaning back hadn't been the best strategy -- and a drop landed on his lips. Salt, but not sweat. Seawater.

Her mouth followed it down like a lightning-strike, and a thunderclap somewhere rattled his skull. For a moment nothing existed but the heat and wet tongue, a rounded softness brushing against his chest, and blinding power that called his blood up like the moon called the rising tide.

Then he swallowed convulsively and pushed his arm between them. She was immovable at first, then jolted backward, laughing at him. "Some men," she said, "call my favors legendary."

"I'm sure they do," Will said, wiping his mouth on his arm before he quite remembered it was rude. "But with all due respect, madam, I am married."

"To a mortal."

"To the woman I love." He gasped as the stifling air returned to normal.

"And will you wait for her, William Turner?" She rose onto her knees on the thin mattress and leaned down again to plant her hands on either side of his hips. "Wait ten long year, alone?"

"Alone, no," he said. "But without taking another woman to my bed." He paused, nose to nose with her and eyes very slightly crossed. "Please get off my bed."

He blinked, and she was sitting on a stool. "Thank you," he added. "I understand that monogamy is not one of your legendary points."

"You," Calypso said, "have been talking to Davy Jones."

Will tilted his head slightly in acknowledgement. "A bit. Here and there. That is how I learned his part in your imprisonment."

"Did he tell you, I made him immortal?" Her eyes glittered. "Did he tell you, William Turner, that I would have had that man for all the time there is? If he had not turned away, from his work, from its gift, from me!"

Will blinked. "I... really wasn't under the impression you were planning to continue the relationship."

"Not continue!"

"He _said_ that you didn't return to him."

The _Dutchman_ was rocking, rocking in the wind and wave. Will wondered if his father would have taken down sail. "I visited him," she said. "On these waters. On the waters of the waking world."

"But not on shore."

"Then, I would have lost him." She spread a net of seaweed between her fingers. It looked as if she'd been playing cat's-cradle. "I s'pose," she said at last, "I still did."

"He seemed to think you had found some other lover."

"Many of them!" She stood, her head brushing the ceiling. "I am the sea, William Turner. I am every sailor's love, that calls him away from home. What does it matter?"

"Only that he seems to have thought you abandoned him."

She shook her head slowly. "He did not understand." Her eyes were dark when she looked at him. "He spurned the favors of Calypso." She smiled again. "Will you do the same, William Turner?"

"I have no wish to insult you, madam," Will said quietly, "but I will wait for Elizabeth."

"Hmp," she said, but Calypso was smiling, even as she faded away like a wave stretching out in deep water.


End file.
